Carrier reliability drops to 32% in Dec; Maersk still best performer

January 28, 2022: The schedule reliability of container carriers dropped 1.2 percentage points month/month to 32 percent in December 2021, the lowest-ever global schedule reliability since Sea-Intelligence started the measurement in 2011.

On a year/year level, schedule reliability was down 12.5 percentage points. "There has not been much fluctuation with the global scores hovering between 32-40 percent for the most part of the year. The average delay for late vessel arrivals increased to 7.33 days - the fifth consecutive month with the delay figure above seven days."

The Sea-Intelligence analysis covered the schedule reliability across 34 different trade lanes and 60+ carriers.

Maersk was once again the most reliable top-14 carrier in December 2021 with schedule reliability of 46.2 percent, followed by Hamburg Süd with 41.4 percent. "Only MSC had schedule reliability between 30-40 percent with six carriers recording schedule reliability of 20-30 percent," says Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence.

The remaining five carriers had schedule reliability of under 20 percent with Evergreen recording the lowest December 2021 schedule reliability figure of 14.3 percent. Nine carriers recorded a M/M improvement in schedule reliability.